


Turning the Page

by factorielle



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-13
Updated: 2010-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:26:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factorielle/pseuds/factorielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody seems to want Tajima to look at this magazine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning the Page

**Author's Note:**

  * For [longleggedgit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/longleggedgit/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Run on Empty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/94044) by [longleggedgit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/longleggedgit/pseuds/longleggedgit). 



> Written as an unauthorised prequel to the fic mentioned above, because I like Tajima being flustered and hesitant.

Tajima is at the convenience store, in the middle of the difficult task of choosing between shrimp or beef cup noodle for dinner, when his phone starts ringing in his pocket. For a brief moment he considers not picking up, because then he'll have to start listing the pros and cons all over again.

He takes the call on the third ring, and it's Nakazawa, sounding unusually amused, asking him if he's seen _Baseball Today_.

"It just came out today, right? Is there something interesting in it?" He's already making his way to the magazines as he asks; Nakazawa has good sense about these things.

But all he says is "You'll know it when you see it," and then he apologizes that his brother wants something and he has to go. Tajima shrugs and slips the phone back in his pocket before scanning the racks, curious enough to keep looking.

When he finds it, the cover features a close-up of the Yomiuri Giants' starting battery, which is of no interest to him at the moment. But at the bottom of the page is a colourful "Japan's 10 Most Promising College Players" that makes his eyes widen and his heart start beating a little faster for no reason at all. He checks the first page, flips to page 27.

And freezes.

He closes it again, just to make sure he didn't pick a porn mag by habit, but no, it's _Baseball Today_ for sure, and when he opens it again the picture is still there. This is Hanai as Tajima used to watch him, changing in the clubroom, sexiness personified and unaware that anybody's looking. He must have been caught by surprise, can't possibly have agreed to something like that, but the picture was taken and printed anyway. To say that he's developed well would be a gross understatement: he's still Hanai, obviously, but every part of him is a little bit more defined, a little bit more ripped, a little bit more out of reach from someone who only ever had sports going for him and now not even that.

Somebody bumps against his shoulder and Tajima realizes he's been staring, open-mouthed. He closes the magazine a little more strongly than necessary and wipes the bit of saliva that has accumulated at the corner of his mouth. To see Hanai like that, after a year of never seeing him closer than from the bleachers above right field and only getting bits of information from Abe or Shinooka or the Aoyama team's web page is a little too much. It feels kind of invasive, when Hanai doesn't want to talk to him, but what is Tajima supposed to do? Put the magazine back in its rack and let somebody else buy it and take it home?

His fingers clench over the spine at the thought. People are going to see Hanai like this, it's unavoidable, but not this copy. This one he's looked at, touched, and it's his.

He gets back to the dorms as fast as possible, still unable to run but managing to hobble at a decent speed.

Thankfully Hondou isn't there when he gets in, and Tajima is free to sprawl on his bed and finally open the magazine again, flipping nervously through the pages.

He means to read the article, he really does, but it goes something like "19-year-old freshman _(shoulders)_ Hanai Azusa _(hipbone)_ is turning _(forearm)_ heads at Aoyama _(abs)_ University this year _(face chest hand oh fuck those shorts hide nothing)_" and by the time he's finished reading the first sentence, Tajima is already grinding against the bed.

Fuck, he really wanted to get all the information before getting to that, but it's Hanai and he's _hot_ and Tajima has never seen him, today's him, from this close.

He slips a hand down his pants, the other tracing random patterns over skin in black and white, and when his vision goes blurry Tajima can almost see Hanai move, his hand wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead before falling back on his hip, pushing the boxers down just a tiny bit lower, and Tajima buries his face in his pillow when he comes all over his fingers, stifling his cry.

When Hondou comes back from his part-time job (bringing food with him, which is good because Tajima kind of forgot about the whole dinner thing), Tajima has wanked twice more to the picture and managed to read the entire write-up, which is mostly things he's always known: that Hanai is an amazing player and unbelievably hot beside, and soon enough everybody who sees him will want him, for baseball or sex or both. But past the sabermetrics that Tajima already knows, the article mentions that Hanai, while popular with the girls, claims no desire to have a girlfriend for the time being.

So he's probably doing the same thing he did throughout most of high school, jerking off to dirty pictures and killing himself with guilt over it every time, which makes Tajima smile. He could help Hanai with that, can think of so many _ways_ he could help Hanai with that and each of them is worth at least fifteen minutes alone in his bed or in the shower, but making any of it happen for real would involve Hanai talking to him.

"I want you," he tells the picture later that night, when Hondou has headed off to a party that Tajima has declined going to after all. "I want you so bad. I wanna touch you and kiss you and mark you all over, fuck, Hanai, I want to make you mine, please just let me--" and he fists his cock until it becomes painful to come.

"Miss you," he whispers after, earnestly, but Hanai is looking off-camera, and won't meet his eyes.

Some time later, Hondou comes in with his girlfriend, both of them giggling and probably more than half-drunk. Tajima doesn't listen to them fuck for once, even though he can't help hearing. But when they're done they talk for a while, quiet intimate whispers that he can't understand, and his fist clenches over the magazine open under his pillow.

Mihashi calls him in the morning, asking if he's seen the spread. "Yeah, I read it," Tajima answers, never taking his eyes off the picture. "Hey, Mihashi, can I call you back later? I'm kind of in the middle of something right now."

_Right now_ turns out to last forty minutes and almost makes him late for his English class where he can't concentrate a whit anyway, his fingers dipping inside his bag every now and then, slipping over the paper as if to make sure it's still there. By the end of his classes all he wants is to get back to his dorm room, and when Maruyama waylays him in the corridor to remind him that they're going to a goukon tonight, Tajima completely blows him off.

By the time he remembers to call Mihashi back, it's past eleven and he's pretty sure that even during planned marathons he's never made himself come so often is so little time, and certainly not over a single picture. Mihashi doesn't pick up, and Tajima lets himself fall back on his bed, magazine held up over his head. "Why won't you talk to me?" he asks aloud, tracing the side of Hanai's face with his thumb. He wonder what Hanai would say if he knew what Tajima's been doing with his picture, if he'd be shocked or horrified or wouldn't even care at all. The idea amuses him enough that he grabs for his phone in his pants and starts typing an email, but instead of pressing _Send_ he goes for _Cancel_ at the last second, just as he always has.

He's had the number for months, fished it out of Abe's phone one afternoon last fall. Gave it a special ringtone, even, just in case Hanai calls when he's in the shower.

Only Hanai's never called. So far, it's been enough for Tajima to know that he has the number right here, that the link isn't broken, but he can't even send an email and shit, if it's going to be like this he should really just erase it, shouldn't he?

Except he doesn't seem capable of doing that, either.

Irritated, Tajima closes the magazine and tosses it to the ground before grabbing his English textbook, determined to concentrate on something else.

Which works not at all until Hondou comes back, alone but a little tipsy, and says "oh, you've got the new _Baseball Today_? Can I read it if you're done? Ayumi said all the girls were drooling over some hot guy in it, I want to check out the competition," and Tajima gulps and says no, he's not done, was just about to start reading it actually and maybe later, okay? Thankfully Hondou shrugs and finds more interest in getting a couple of beers from their minuscule fridge than in arguing over a baseball magazine.

"Maruyama says you skipped the goukon?" he asks, dropping a can on Tajima's pillow.

"I didn't feel like going," Tajima says, sitting up. He opens the can with one hand, the other still laid on the magazine's cover. "It's always the same thing, you know?"

"That's two nights in a row you haven't been going out. Are you sick or something?" He really looks concerned, frowning in a kind of silly way, but when he's sober he never remembers that he's kind of an inquisitive mom when drunk.

"Maybe I am," Tajima says, wondering if that's not exactly it.

The next day he's awake earlier than any university student ought to be on the Emperor's birthday, and if his knee didn't still hurt it would be a perfect time to go running. Instead he emails Ayumi-san that he'll be out of the dorm all morning and she should come over if she wants, and goes out without a clear idea of what he's doing or where he wants to go, or why he took the magazine with him instead of hiding it under his mattress.

After a couple of aimless minutes outside, he decides to go to the park, to sprawl on the grass and look at the clouds for a while. Someone is leaving the convenience store when he walks by it, an older man with a pack of cigarettes in one hand and in the other...

In the other he's got _Baseball Today_ and he's going to take it home and he's going to see Hanai, just like Nakazawa, just like Mihashi and Ayumi-san's girlfriends and Tajima doesn't like that, all these people seeing Hanai this way when he used to be the only one, and also it's not enough anymore to just stare at a picture and imagine or to write emails that he never sends. He wants to talk to Hanai too, relearn everything about him, have whispered conversations in the middle of the night and be able to call if he wants, know that Hanai thinks about him sometimes too.

It's been a year, and Hanai hasn't called. But neither has Tajima, so maybe he needs to stop waiting.

Still standing in the middle of the street, Tajima takes a deep breath, and grabs his phone.

**Author's Note:**

> [Fujiwara no Seimei](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Fujiwara_no_Seimei/pseuds/Fujiwara_no_Seimei) has gone above and beyond and drawn the [magazine spread](http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae73/fujiwaranoseimei/hanaimag.jpg)!


End file.
